


Dresses and Braids

by TwicetheTrouble



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, cannon trans character, just taako being awesome, lup dealing with it, lup pov, taako being a good brother, taako is super suportive, that's basically the whole fic, twins being twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-07 16:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12845247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwicetheTrouble/pseuds/TwicetheTrouble
Summary: Lup is convinced she has the best brother ever. The fact that he'll do almost anything to make sure she's happy, from buying her dresses to wearing them himsef, only cements this.Or, in which Taako is, in fact an awesome brother and does a bunch of stuff to prove it.





	1. Dresses

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything like this before so I hope it's alright. It's only going to be a three chapter fic. One as kids, one in the IPRE, and one in Faerun. I already did a small comic about it but it's not very good. It didn't convey what I wanted it to so wrote it instead.
> 
> Anyways, here you go. And I hope you enjoy,
> 
> TBL

When we were kids, I told one of our caretakers that I wanted to wear a dress. We had passed one in the store window that was this pretty coral pink with a bright green sash. I had stared at it for a long time, my brother at my side, before she had noticed. I pointed at it and said, “Can I wear that?”

She was furious. Grabbing both me and Taako’s hands she pulled us away from the window and down the street.

“Boys don’t wear dresses,” she told me. “Don’t ask that again.”

“But why not?” I asked, looking back at the dress longingly.

“Because they don’t!”

“That’s not a good answer,” Taako pipped up, making her shoot a powerful glair his way. He quickly shrunk back, his mouth clamped shut.

“Continue this and you’ll be locked in your room for a week, got that?” She asked fiercely. Taako nodded mutely, knowing she wasn’t bluffing. She turned back to me. “And you, dresses are for girls. You’re not a girl. So you don’t wear dresses. That’s final.”

I stayed quiet, my head down as I fought to keep the tears from falling.

As soon as I got home, I ran to our room and hid under a blanket, dead set on being alone under there for the next century or so. It lasted maybe ten minutes before Taako crawled under to join me.

“Why are you crying?” He asked a minute later.

“I’m not crying!” I demanded angrily. He said nothing as he wiped my cheek with his thumb, showing me when it came back wet.

“Alright then, why are you sweating from your eyes then Lulu?” He asked with a smirk. I glared at him but it wasn’t nearly as powerful as our caretakers. He just sat there with his stupid smirk on his face and waited.

“She said I can’t wear a dress,” I murmured to him.

“She also said that girls wear them.”

“So? I like dresses! They’re pretty and cute! And I want to be pretty and cute! Not, well, this!” I shouted, gesturing to the dark green tunic I was currently wearing. “But she says I’m not allowed to because I’m a boy. That’s not fair.”

“You would look cute in a dress,” Taako said simply.

“I know!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air, disturbing our tent in the process. After we righted the blanket, we sat there in silence for a long while as I debated on whether I should say more. I glanced over at my twin nervously. He seemed to notice and bumped his shoulder against mine encouragingly.

“Anything else?”

“It’s going to sound silly,” I told him, looking away again.

“So? I say silly stuff all the time and you haven’t ditched me yet.”

“This is different,” I told him. Taako stayed quiet, waiting patiently. “It’s just, sometimes I wish I was born a girl. That way I can have long hair and wear pretty things and be cute and no one would care. But I’m a boy so I can’t.”

I sniffed loudly, tears falling once again, and for once my brother didn’t have anything to say. All he did was pull me into a hug and let me cry myself to sleep on his shoulder.

 

Taako disappeared the next morning, shouting something about being back later before running off down the road. I tried to follow him but he was always a tad stealthier than I so I lost him pretty quickly. He was gone for the entire day, coming back by dinner time covered in dirt and some small bruises.

I tried to ask what he was doing but he just smiled at me and went to dinner.

The next day he did the same thing. In fact for an entire week he would run off soon after breakfast, only to come back right before dinner, filthy and exhausted. I was starting to get worried, I mean what could my brother possibly be doing all day? And, more importantly, why was he doing it without me?

I thought it might have something to do with our conversation earlier. Maybe he was embarrassed that his twin wanted to dress like a girl. If so, this whole thing could be a way to avoid me for the first time in our lives. I loved my brother and if he didn’t like this then, well, I’d rather wear boring grey tunics for the rest of my life than lose him.

I sat by the door and waited for for him to come back that seventh day. Just like the others he had disappeared early and was due to be back any moment now. I figured I could confront him now, apologize or something. Basically anything that would give me my brother back.

A few minutes later I saw his form running down the road at a dead sprint. I got up from my perch, walking to meet him, only to stop when I noticed something funny. When he left this morning he had been wearing a plain blue tunic, now he was wearing something bright green. And long. In fact it almost looked like a dress.

The closer he got the more I realized, he was wearing a dress. It was a simple one, an old style and a little worn. But it was a vibrant green color that flowed behind him as he ran.

 “Taako? What are you-“ I started to ask once he was within range. I was quickly cut off by pink piece of fabric held in front of my face.

“Here Lup! This one’s yours!” he said excitedly. I looked at the fabric he was holding up to see it was a bright pink dress, similar to the one he was wearing but not quite matching. It was old just like his but seemed to be in better shape than the green one.

“A dress?” I asked, not really believing what I was seeing.

“Yup! It took me while to get them but they were cute so I thought you’d like it.” The dress lowered a few inches so I could see my brother. He looked a bit concerned when I didn’t answer him right away. “You do like it, right?”

“Yeah, for sure,” I said as I took the dress from him. It was soft still, even though it probably had a previous owner or two. “But why?”

“Well, you said you wanted a dress, right? And if the bitch wasn’t going to get you one then I would,” He said with a grin.

“And why do you have one?”

“We’re twins, silly. We’re supposed to match,” he stated so matter of fact that I couldn’t help but smile back. “Do you want to wear it now?”

“Hell yeah!” I exclaimed, taking his hand and running towards the house. “How did you get these anyways?”

“Bought ‘em.”

“With what money?”

“Do you really want to know?” He gave me a sly smirk that had me laughing.

“No probably not.”

 

As you can imagine, our caretaker wasn’t very thrilled with that. She tried to punish us and take them away soon after. But we didn’t really stay long enough to give her a chance. We left that night, hitching a ride with a caravan that just happened to be passing through, both of us still wearing our new dresses.

It wasn’t till later that I realized the real reason Taako got one for himself too. Yeah, I’m sure he wanted us to match like we always had, but there was more to it. He didn’t want me to have to wear it alone. We knew from our caretaker that most people didn’t like when others wear stuff they’re not supposed to, so if I wore it alone, I would get stares and glairs all day long. But if we both wore them, he would be taking some of the attention from me. It was his own little way of protecting me, and insuring I had the courage to wear what I wanted.


	2. Spells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's another chapter. I'm glad to see the response that I got from you all. I know this is a little weird of a story but it's just something I felt like I needed to get out of my head.
> 
> I'm also having a bit of a hard time getting Taako to paper so I'm thanking you a head of time for your understanding. I know he's a little off but his style still hasn't clicked with me yet. I'm hoping this small story will help with that so I can write a longer one later on.
> 
> Hope you enjoy,  
> TBL

It was almost a century before we stopped our constant traveling, jumping from one caravan to the other without any regard to its destination. We probably would have kept going if we didn’t hear about the IPRE and its plan to send a small crew across dimensions within the next decade or so. My brother and I didn’t even bother to talk about it, we just looked at each other and knew we had to be on that ship.

Of course to get there we needed to be part of a school, and to do that we needed to find one willing to give us scholarships. That turned out a lot easier than either of us had thought. The first school we found were practically begging us to attend once they saw the small amount of magic we had learned over the years. They kept throwing around words like “prodigies” and “gifted magicians” even though we were barely doing second level spells. But who were we to look a gift horse in the mouth. We enrolled immediately.

We had been there for almost a year when I snuck into my brother’s room one night, nervous about what tomorrow was going to bring.

“Hey Koko,” I called as I flopped onto him. He gave a small grunt but didn’t move from where he was laying on his bed, reading a spell book. “What yah doing?”

“Well, Lulu, there’s this neat thing called studying that I thought I would try,” he answered, not looking up from his book. “Thought that it might help with that transmutation test we have next week.”

“Studying? Seriously? What happened to the whole ‘I can transmute circles around our teacher and look twice as fantastic doing it’?”

“Still can. Still do. But it never hurts to hedge a bet.” He finally looked up at me over the book with a sly grin on his face. “And, this may or may not be from her third years’ class. Figured she needed a little surprise just to show her how inadequate her teaching is.”

I laughed as my brother turned back to his book.

“So, sister of mine, what brings you into my abode this late? We did all that work to get that principal to allow you into the girl’s dorm yet you’d rather chill with me half the time. What gives?”

“You mean _you_ did all that work. I still don’t know what you said to convince him. Or why he’s now terrified of you.”

“And now you’re changing the topic. You do know you haven’t answered my question yet, right?”

“Taako…”

“Ah, ah.  You know the drill,” he said waving a finger at me over top his book. “We don’t change topics until we have at least a semblance of an answer. Otherwise we end up deflecting questions back and forth until no one knows anything.”

“I know,” I whispered, folding my arms under my head as I looked up at the ceiling. A while ago Taako had used prestidigitation to make glowing stars over his bed. Apparently after sleeping under the real thing for so long, he had trouble doing without at least some fake ones overhead. Not that we really needed to sleep very much with our meditating.

“Then what’s the problem? We both need our beauty sleep and at this time of night all we’re going to end up with is a quick meditation session, and that does nothing to get rid of dark circles.”

“I’m nervous,” I admitted after a long moment. With a small sigh Taako puts a book mark in his book and sets it on the night stand.

“About the transition spell tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, not looking at him.

“You’re not going to chicken out, are you?”

“No. I just, I’m scared. What if…this isn’t what I really want? What if I regret it later? What if something goes wrong?”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” he said simply as he ran a soothing hand through my curly hair. “And I highly doubt you’re going to regret it.”

“But I could.” I turned towards him, seeing that he had his disbelieving look on his face I continued. “I’m not the best judge of myself. It took me fifty years to realize that I was a girl. I could be wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” he answered. I looked away again.

“You don’t know that.”

“Lup,” he said, I looked at him again to find a serious look on his face for the first time in a while. “It may have taken you fifty years to figure it out, but I’ve watched you for the last fifty struggle with the fact that who you are and who you were born are not the same. And tomorrow, you finally have the chance to fix it. So I _know_ you’re not wrong.”

I stared at him for a moment before smiling.

“Thanks Koko,” I said swiping at my eyes before those tears could fall.

“Any time Lulu,” she said, smiling back. “Plus, if you do and up regretting it, we can always have it undone. It’s magic, not rocket science.”

I barked out a laugh I quickly had to cover up. We’ve already been in trouble with the RA’s about waking others up at odd hours of the night, there was no need to get their attention again.

When I settle down again, we just sat there for a while, not talking. It was peaceful, so peaceful in fact that Taako’s breath was already slowing as if he were falling asleep. I smiled a bit, my eyes catching his wardrobe at the other end of the room. It was full of dresses and pretty things that Taako rocked on a daily basis.

“Hey Taako?” I called, getting a questioning hum in response. “Will you still wear dresses and stuff after tomorrow?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” He murmured.

“Well, it’s not like you’d need to wear them anymore,” I told him. He made some sort of confused noise but didn’t say anything else. “I know you only wore then so I wasn’t so self-conscious about dressing how I wanted. But after tomorrow, that won’t really matter, will it? I’ll be a girl, completely, so I’ll be expected to dress as I always do.”

“If you’re asking for my clothes, the answer’s no.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I like my clothes Lulu. I wouldn’t wear them otherwise,” he said simply.

“But you only started wearing them because I did.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t like them.”

“But-“

“I’m not getting rid of my entire wardrobe. It would be a waste. After all, no one could pull them off as well as I do,” he said so matter of fact that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What about me? We’re twins.”

“I guess you could but I’d still beat you, no contest.” He promptly got a pillow to the face that had him laughing too.

“Then you should grow your hair out,” I piped up, earning a groan from my brother.

“Not this again,” he muttered. I rolled over to face him, still using him as a pillow as I propped my head up on my arm.

“But it would look so cute in a braid!”

“You’ll use any excuse to bring this up.”

“Come on! It will be great.”

“I’m going to sleep.”

“Koko!”

 

The next day came and everything went great. By the end of it all I was finally the person I knew I was, and it was a relief. Taako wouldn’t admit it, but he was just as nervous as I was. That’s probably why he was still up the night before, though the studying did help him show off in class the next week. The look on her face when he cast Blink to steal the class notes and launch them out the window to be blasted by me is something I’m always going to cherish. The fact that he did so in a pleaded skirt and an off the shoulder, fluffy pink sweater just made it that much better.

In hind sight, I was more nervous about my brother changing than I was about the actual Transition Spell. I was afraid that once I was good, he would go back to wearing tunics and slacks, that he’d cut his chin length hair to be short like the other males in the world. That he would become like everyone else and we would no longer be, well, us.

But he didn’t. He stayed exactly the same, wearing the same cute outfits as always and making people look twice. I’m certain that though he said it was all for him, it was still a bit for me as well. By not changing, he was showing me his continued support as well as making sure the rest of the world caught up with the times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's my [tumblr](https://tblsomestories.tumblr.com/) in you feel like checking it out.


	3. Braids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I'm back with the last installment of this cute little story. Thanks to everyone that left kudos and bookmarks, you guys are awesome! I really appreciate it.
> 
> Also, on another note, I think I finally have Taako down which means I might be able to do another fic for him. Sound fun? I think so!
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoy,  
> TBL

In the years that followed, a lot changed. We went from being students, to being travelers, to being two of only seven people stuck in a constant loop of trying to save the world as we knew it. But as bad as those cycles got, as much as I hated being thrown from one planer system to another, I at least still had my brother. He was the one constant in my life that I knew would always be there for me. He’s always been at my side, watching my back. Until he wasn’t. Until I stupidly went out on my own. Until some bastard poisoned me and I got sucked into my own umbrella. It was then, in those ten long years that I was stuck in that place, that I discovered was it was like to be alone. And I hated it.

Once I had the strength to think again, I began to wonder where Taako was. I’ve had to have been gone a while so why hasn’t he come to find me yet? He was my brother, my twin, the one person that knew me best. It shouldn’t have taken him more than a few months to figure out where I went. So why was my physical body looking as if it’s been there for years instead?

I started to doubt him, wonder if he even wanted to find me. Maybe my disappearance was just the thing he needed. Maybe he resented me for not letting him have his own life. Maybe I was holding him back from being what he always wanted to be. It was a horrible thought, one that I knew was false, but I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. And the longer I spent in there, the more I began to believe it.

But then I heard something. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, I heard a voice.

_“Uh, hey, whichever one you are? Dwarf? There’s a cane here to look at.”_

“Taako!” I immediately perked up. That was my brother’s voice, I was sure of it. I focused all my energy into looking outside the umbrella, just to make sure. And sure enough, it was him, accompanied by Merle and Magnus. They each looked about a decade older than I last saw them, with Merle’s hair having completely finished it’s turn to grey while Magnus seemed to be sporting some new scars. None of them were wearing there IPRE attire, which confused me a bit. The seven of us didn’t like to go without them since they were some of the few things that linked us to our home planar system. My brother’s clothing puzzled me even more.

“Koko, what are you wearing?” I asked as I studied his apparel. He was dressed in plane adventurer’s attire; a dirty white peasant top, a pair of warn boots, a baggy grey cloak and matching wizard’s hat, along with a dark colored, knee-length skirt. The last time I saw my brother he would have never been caught dead in such an average outfit. Let alone hair long enough for his braid to be brushing his knees.

While I was contemplating my brother’s change in style, I felt someone grab the umbrella. I looked quickly to see that it was Merle and frowned.

“No. Just, no,” I said, as I collected some magic. “I want my brother. Taako will know what to do. He’ll get me out.”

I used that magic to push him away, which, I’ll admit, was farther than I thought it’d be. I felt a little guilty launching him into the wall like that but I needed to get my point across. I wanted Taako.

There was silence as the other three watched Merle lay there before Taako perked up.

“ _I’ll give it a whirl_ ,” he stated, now walking towards my prison.

“Yes!” I exclaimed as I felt him grab the umbrella, pulling it from its resting spot on my physical body. I immediately used the rest of my stored magic to shoot electric sparks everywhere in a joyful show. I figured that would be enough to tell him I was there.

“You found me Taako! See?” I said happily, waiting for him to share my joy. But he never did. Instead he just stared at it blankly, like he didn’t know what he was holding.

_“And now I have an umbrella,”_ he said flatly, and I just broke.

“But it’s not just _an_ umbrella. It’s _my_ umbrella. My Umbrastaff!” I scolded, but he didn’t hear me. He was already turning to yell at Merle, trying to get him to act like a cleric or something. “Taako! Please! I’m here! Let me out! TAAKO!”

I continued to yell at him, scream and cry as I tried to convince him to just break the fucking umbrastaff. But no matter how much I pleaded, it fell on deaf ears. Instead I was forced to watch as they uncovered my piece of the light and how Gundren had ran off with it. I cried in happiness when I saw Berry in Phandolen, only to scream in pain when the town was burned to glass with him in it.

I was so confused and hurt I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what was going on, or why Taako, Magnus, and Merle where acting like they barely knew each other or why they were acting like losing Barry wasn’t such a big deal. I mean yeah, he was a Lich but that didn’t mean his physical death wasn’t something to morn.

It wasn’t until the three of them met the so called Director that I realized what happed. It was Lucrecia. A much older Lucrecia but after knowing her for over a century, there was no way I couldn’t recognize her. And just from the look on her face when they walked in, I knew. She was responsible for this. She and that damn voidfish of hers took everyone’s memories away. They didn’t remember me. My own brother didn’t remember me.

I fell into a bit of depression after that, only paying attention to the outside world enough to keep my idiot brother from getting killed. Otherwise I stayed in meditation, collecting energy and wallowing in self-pity.

It wasn’t for a few months, and one event in particular, that I finally snapped out of it. It was a little after they retrieved Davenport’s oculus that I heard him bickering with Magnus and Merle. This wasn’t a surprise or anything, it seemed to happen almost every day now that they don’t remember each other. But this time I could hear a tightness in my brother’s voice, one that told me he was upset about something and was desperately trying to hide it.

“ _Come on, it’s just a haircut,_ ” Merle pointed out simply. They were in training room resting after a difficult work out. The dwarf was sitting on one of the benches while Magnus lay on the floor having already upended his water skin over his head.

“ _Not a chance, bubula. Cha boy ain’t letting some hack job near his beautiful golden locks. No way,_ ” he said as he stood nearby trying to fix his hair, my umbrastaff propped up next to him.

“ _If you need to use Mage hand just to tame your hair then you need a cut_ ,” Merle tried to reason, but Taako was already shaking his head furiously.

“ _Nope. No. It’s perfectly fine, thank you very much. And it’s not like I’m wasting a spell slot on it so I don’t really see the problem_ ,” he stated as he finished running his fingers (and the mage fingers) through his hair and started to braid it again.

_“The problem is that it looks like you haven’t cut it in over a decade.”_

_“I have too. My bangs would look horrible otherwise.”_

_“Your bangs don’t count, Taako.”_

_“Then what do you expect of me?_ ” he asked, throwing a hand in the air as the mage hand picked up the slack.

I watched him in confusion as he continued to bicker with Merle about cutting his hair. This wasn’t something that was normally an issue before. He had always kept his hair at a reasonable length, never letting it go much past his shoulders, no matter how much I prodded him to. It was a length he was comfortable with, so why was he upset about it now.

Before I could figure it out, my brother yelped as he was hoisted in the air by a recently upright Magnus.

_“So, which way to the barber again?”_ Magnus asked, Taako now slung over his shoulders. My eyes widened as I took in my brother’s expression. He looked scared.

I didn’t even think before I pushed my umbrastaff to the floor and aimed a fire bolt at Magnus’s feet. It was a small one, so it wouldn’t have hurt him very much. It was probably for the best that he barely dodged the bolt, accidentally dropping Taako in the process. My brother immediately took advantage of the distraction as he landed in a crouch, scooped up the umbrella, and darted back a few yards as quickly as possible.

_“Try a stunt like that again and I will waist whatever spell slots I have left on you both. Don’t think I won’t_ ,” he said, his voice wavering now.

For Magnus and Merle’s credit they seemed to realize he was serious and didn’t try it again.

_“Your umbrella just attacked me,” Magnus stated, sounding kind of shocked._

_“You fucking deserved it.”_

_“Alright, that was pretty shitty of him,”_ Merle conceded, getting a surprised look from Magnus. _“But Taako, why are you so adamant about not getting your hair cut?”_

_Taako stared at him blankly for a moment._

_“I don’t see what you’re getting at here.”_

_“Dude, you literally just lost your shit because I tried to take you to a barber,_ ” Magnus piped in. “ _I almost lost my shoes! Do you know what I went through to get these things?”_

_“Actually, yes,” Taako said, giving him a dirty look._

_“Oh, yeah.”_

_“So why won’t you cut your hair?_ ” Merle pushed again, getting them back on track. Taako looked at them both for a long moment, an expression I knew well on his face. He was weighing his options, trying to figure out if he should trust them with the truth. It took a long moment before he finally made his decision. He took a small breath before he spoke, the truth making itself known.

_“I…don’t know_ ,” he answered quietly. _“I just. Don’t. Every time I try to get it cut, the scissors aren’t even to my hair yet before I bolt.”_

_“So you’re scared of getting your hair cut?”_ Magnus asked, making my brother scoff.

“ _No, I just can’t. It feels wrong. Like there’s a reason I haven’t cut my hair but I’ve, forgotten it_ ,” he explained. He looked lost in thought for a long moment before continuing. “ _My closest guess is that there’s something missing, and I have to find it before I can allow myself to get it cut.”_

“Koko,” I whispered, realizing exactly what was going on. “You’re keeping it long for me? You don’t even remember I exist but you’re still keeping your hair long for me.”

Tears welled in my eyes as the other two began to heckle him about his vague answer, but I knew.

“Don’t worry, brother. I’m here. You just don’t know it yet,” I said, chuckling as he huffed at his teammates and strutted out of the room. “You would know if you weren’t so dense. I’m pretty sure I’d have to burn my name in the wall in order to get your attention.”

I paused, ignoring Taako’s muttering as a plan began to form in my head.

“That’s not such a bad idea actually. It’s going to take a lot of energy though.” I thought for a moment before shrugging. “Fuck, it will be worth it.”

“ _Bastards don’t know shit,”_ Taako muttered, a little louder than he had been. I turned back to him with a sad smile.

“Don’t worry Koko, I’ll be back soon. And when I am, you’ll be able to cut your hair any length you want. As long as it looks good that is. I refuse to be associated with a guy wearing a mullet or bowl cut. Nope, I’ll disown you right on the fucking spot.”

_“I’ve been insulted!”_ Taako yelled, making me laugh. I knew he was still going on about Magnus and Merle but I could pretend, just for a moment, that he was talking about me. That it was us bantering back and forth like we’ve always been. Like we were together again. Even when we aren’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's my [tumblr](https://tblsomestories.tumblr.com/) in you feel like checking it out.
> 
> Here's the [comic](https://twicethetrouble.deviantart.com/art/Taako-and-Lup-716800885) I did for it. It's a little different but it was completed before I wrote this. It still keeps the same points tho.


End file.
